Jacksonville’s most senior citizen dies at 106

Esther Hamm Shepard was a woman of faith, a matriarch and a civic-minded individual. She also was Onslow County’s oldest woman at the age of 106.

CHRISTOPHER THOMAS Daily News Staff

Esther Hamm Shepard was a woman of faith, a matriarch and a civic-minded individual. She also was Onslow County’s oldest woman at the age of 106.

“She was always there for us,” said her niece Gladys Brooks. “She guided me in every way, especially spiritually. She felt more like a grandmother than an aunt.”

Books, an ordained minister who serves at Maple Hill Deliverance Center, said her late aunt who died Dec. 20 was, above all else, a “strong, virtuous black woman” who took the golden rule of “Do to others as you would have them to do” to heart. According to her oldest grandson, Dennis Shepard, she also had a heart for the sick.

“She was a very caring person,” Dennis Shepard said. “She looked forward to visiting the people in the nursing homes and hospitals. She would stay with them all day. If she knew you were there, she’d always come and see you.”

Shepard was born on Jan. 25, 1907 in Bear Creek to Frank and Carrie Hamm on land that would later become Camp Lejeune. According to Brooks, Shepard’s early years weren’t always easy, especially after her father died when Shepard was 14, and had to take a job looking after children for a nearby white family in order to help provided for her mother and seven siblings. The experience, though opened Shepard up to an education she wouldn’t have had otherwise.

“The mother of those children taught her how to read and write by their fireplace,” Brooks said. “My aunt said it was a privilege.”

After the government acquired the land in which Shepard’s family once lived, Shepard started working on the — then — new Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and met the man who would become her husband, Lonnie Shepard. After World War II, the Shepards took a job with another local family who would visit their own extended family in Tennessee. According to Books, this was a family that included a child that would go on to hold the second-most powerful position in the federal government: Al Gore.

“When he ran for Vice President, she was very excited about it,” Brooks said. “She said ‘I used to baby sit him!’

Dennis Shepard said his grandmother was a civic minded woman who took the opportunity to vote in every opportunity she got, saying that her passion for voting was rooted in more than a century of disenfranchisement for blacks at the voting booth. According to Shepard, nothing, including her inability to drive, got in the way of her taking use of the ballot box.

“She took her rite to vote very seriously,” Shepard said. “Whether you took her or she got a taxi, she was going to vote. I think it was because of the way blacks were treated back in her day. She wanted to make a difference.”

Books said her aunt was the head of the family and was quick to instruct, but always did so with the intent to encourage and improve. Brooks said Shepard taught her valuable lessons on morality and spirituality she’s kept with her after 61 years of her own on the Earth.

“As a child, she would always sit me down and talk with me, explaining what was right and wrong,” Brooks said. “She would always tell me ‘you want to keep a good name, no matter what.’”

Above all else, Brooks said her aunt a woman after God’s heart. When Brooks was ordained as a minister in 2008, she said Shepard was “tickled pink” and has been a “rock” to her through her life, including her ministry. According to Brooks, the thing that kept Shepard constant through her 106 years on her was her faith, one that she tried to instill in her descendants, which includes five grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and a great-great-grandchild.

“She always said ‘as long as you got Jesus, you’ll make it,” Brooks said. “That’s the way she lived and that’s what she instilled in me. That’s the rock she had to stand on.”

Christopher Thomas is a staff writer for the Daily News. To contact him, call 910-219-8473 or send an email to christopher.thomas@jdnews.com.